Probably what was said after someone demonstrated black powder, cloth and gravel poured down a piece of pipe and touched off with a fuze.
You don’t need to use an elephant gun to kill a flea.
“No, not at all. It depends on what your objective it. If its to destroy the vehicle, it can be done much more cost effectively with a TV or laser guided bomb. If its to disable the vehicle, you can simply drop sharp objects on the highway ahead to blow out the tires.”
And if your objective is to shoot down an ICBM launched from Cuba 400 miles away? What gets to the missile faster, a bullet or light? I have no problem with this in our arsenal. If you’re looking for funding cuts, let’s start with ACORN and work downward...
Detractors of the first firearms demonstration would have pointed to the much greater range, reliability, rate of fire and accuracy of longbows and crossbows.
Initially, such directed energy capability would fill a very narrow operational niche. In the case of a vehicle barreling down a desert road containing high value targets whose value is higher alive than dead, such system offers an ability to disable the vehicle rather than obliterate it as is currently done via predator strikes.